etcd 2.0 cluster with proxy on Windows Server 2012

I got interested in etcd while working on CoreOS for a work project. I’m no fan of Linux, but I like what etcd offers and how simple it is to setup and manage. Thankfully, the etcd team produces a Windows build with every release. I created a Chocolatey package and got it published, then used it to setup the cluster. The service is hosted by nssm, which also has a Chocolatey package and the extremely helpful nssm edit tool for making changes to the service config. Etcd has great documentation here.

Etcd is installed by running:

choco install -y etcd --params="<service parameters>"

Where service parameters is:

etcd --name "%COMPUTERNAME%" ^
--initial-advertise-peer-urls "http://%COMPUTERNAME%:2380" ^
--listen-peer-urls "http://%COMPUTERNAME%:2380" ^
--listen-client-urls "http://%COMPUTERNAME%:2379,http://127.0.0.1:2379" ^
--advertise-client-urls "http://%COMPUTERNAME%:2379" ^
--discovery "https://discovery.etcd.io/<your_token_here>" ^
--debug

Or you can install it in proxy mode by running:

choco install -y etcd --params="--proxy on --listen-client-urls http://127.0.0.1:2379 --discovery https://discovery.etcd.io/<your_token_here>"

Proxy mode is especially useful because it lets applications running on a machine be ignorant of the etcd cluster. Applications connect to localhost on a known port, and etcd in proxy mode manages finding and using the cluster. Even if the cluster is running on CoreOS, running etcd in proxy mode on Windows is a good way to help Windows apps leverage etcd.

Watch a demo of the whole thing here: